An 18-year-old Bend man was killed and his teenage passenger seriously injured when the driver lost control while speeding on the icy road conditions of Skyliners Road west of Bend, Oregon Tuesday afternoon, deputies reported.

The car, a 2003 Honda Civic, was traveling west near milepost 4.5 at what Deschutes County Sheriff’s Sgt. Dan Swearingen described as a “high rate of speed” when Maximo Silvio Diguisto, 18, lost control on a sweeping right-hand curve. The vehicle slid sideways off the road and dug into a snow berm, an impact that launched the car into the air before the Honda’s roof struck a large pine tree.

Sheriff’s deputies, Bend Police, Oregon State Police, U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement and Bend Fire paramedics all responded to the accident scene about 2:10 p.m., Swearingen said. While enroute, deputies received information from witnesses that Diguisto was unconscious but breathing and the passenger, Harper Francis Gossard, an 18-year-old Bend woman, was seriously injured.

An Airlife helicopter was dispatched to respond, but later cancelled, the sergeant said.

When paramedics arrived, Diguisto was pronounced deceased at the scene, while Gossard was conscious and her condition improving. She was transported by ground ambulance to St. Charles Medical Center in Bend with reportedly serious injuries.

The accident remains under investigation, Sgt. Swearingen said, not ruling out the possibility that alcohol may have been involved. Both occupants were wearing seat belts, he added.